


Home Visit

by tobinlaughing



Category: Captain America (MCU), MCU, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Thor (MCU) - Fandom
Genre: F/M, Gen, Secret Marriage, ShieldShock - Freeform, Tumblr Prompt, domesticity in the big city, secret
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-31
Updated: 2015-08-03
Packaged: 2018-04-12 06:22:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 9,073
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4468601
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tobinlaughing/pseuds/tobinlaughing
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>From <a href="http://c-is-for-circinate.tumblr.com/post/125107660715/so-i-know-how-much-everybody-loves">this </a> series of prompts, posted to tumblr by @c-is-for-circinate:</p>
<p>“My parents thought I was working for an insurance company in New York when really I was joining the CIA so I just sort of never mentioned when I met you on an assassination-gone-wrong and now we’ve been married for five years and they still don’t know you exist, this has gotten wildly out of hand and you won’t stop laughing about it”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

“This will be fine,” Darcy mutters to herself for the umpteenth time; just like all the times before, she knows she doesn't really believe it. The apartment is spotless (not hard to accomplish, as she spends almost zero time here; really it just took about three vacuum cleaner bags and a whole lot of furniture polish to make it look as though this _wasn't_ just the mailing address she maintained for cover purposes); she's got a whole four-day weekend blocked off from work (although catching up on the post-mission paperwork and reconciling the expenses reports from Romanoff's latest jaunt through China are going to be waiting on her desk Tuesday morning); she's even filled the fridge with the half-remembered favorite things that her folks always had in their kitchen, _plus_ a truly impressive and colorful array of prominently-displayed fruits and vegetables. Dishes (tastefully white, square, barely used) are clean and put away; there's no laundry hanging over doors or arms of chairs (what little clothing she owns that isn't office-appropriate is almost ninety percent new, hung in the closet so that if she forgot to remove tags they're hidden from view), and all the weird tech she could find is locked securely in her hidey space above her bed. 

“This will be fine,” she repeats. She still doesn't believe it. 

  


_”Let me pick you up from the airport,” she insisted, again, over her mother's protestations. “Look, a cab is just going to be way too expensive from La Guardia, and I can get us a table somewhere, the Fig maybe, so we don't have to try to cross midtown during rush hour--”_

 _“Dearest, we can't ask you to take a whole day off of work just to ferry us back from the airport!” Mom's voice was soothing, and yet had that undertone of martyrdom that Darcy had come to love and expect over the last six years. She hadn't seen her mom and stepdad since two Christmases ago, and it'd been almost four years before that that they'd been in New York to move her to start her new job. She'd made dutiful phone calls every weekend, kept them updated on the less-classified interesting parts of her life, and taken a quick flight back home to Philly whenever possible—on the order of twice a year. And she'd always come home alone...._

 _

Mom's next words sent the hairs on the back of her neck to standing up, though: “And besides, your Aunt Margery's given us the name of one of her publishing friends, and he's going to meet us for cocktails Thursday night. It'll give us something to do if you need to work late.” 

_

_Parker had gotten very sensitive about people co-opting his favorite phrase, but Darcy's spider-sense was tingling._

  


Steve's not late, not yet. She's twisting the ring around on her finger, having yet another internal debate about wearing it, when he swings through the door and sweeps her up for a reassuring, solid kiss-and-hug, the same way he does when coming back from a mission: he's cleaned up back at the Tower, but under his aftershave Darcy can still smell a little cordite, and a little gun smoke. 

  


“Any word yet?” he asks, studying her face and keeping both hands on her shoulders. He's acting like she's going to fall apart at any second, like they're waiting to hear the life-or-death report from one of Coulson's missions. Darcy forces a smile and tries to clamp down on her nerves, even managing a little laugh. 

  


“Jeez, Rogers, it's my parents, not an 0-8-4,” she tries to quip, and stands on tiptoe to kiss him on the cheek. He cracks a quick grin, then is all business again. 

  


“Yeah, your mother and stepfather, whom I've never met and I'm pretty sure don't know that I exist yet, right? No big deal _Missus_ Rogers. No sweat at all.” “Oh, they know you exist--” 

“They know _Captain America_ exists, you mean,” Steve grates, “not that you married his mild-mannered alter ego three years ago and are working for the super-secret spy organization that is responsible for eighty percent of the big explosions they see on the nightly news.” 

  


“Get with the times, Cap, no one watches the nightly news any more.” The apartment is, of course, a SHIELD-vetted and -owned property, so Darcy doesn't worry about any of Steve's words escaping the sound-proofed walls or front doors. All surveillance devices here are Stark-made, and no one who might be listening in at their seldom-used Morningside Heights apartment is going to be shocked at the revelations from the Rogers-Lewis household. Heck, with how infrequently they spend time here, Stark might have given the place up as an intelligence asset, especially since he hasn't yet been able to eavesdrop on any intimate moments here. 

  


Steve only growls at her on his way to the fridge to grab a a can of lemonade, then spends enough time with the doors open to make the fridge's energy-efficiency alarm beep. He's moving things around on the shelves, messing with Darcy's carefully-arranged display of superfoods and Good Sources of Vitamin C; then he goes to the clean hand towels hanging on the oven-door handle and swipes at them, knocking one askew and re-hanging the other over the edge of the sink. Making the place look lived-in, Darcy realizes. She goes to the door and kicks her shoes off to one side, then spends a minute or two bouncing her butt from one end of the couch to the other to get at least some scuffs in the faux-suede pile of the cushions. And then Steve notices her antics and skips over to help and a lot of Darcy's tension melts away under a quick skirmish of tickles, kisses, and tumbling. The throw-blanket is pulled askew and Steve accidentally kicks the coffee table, but luckily there's none of his super-strength behind it and it only skids to one side instead of exploding into broken glass and splinters. 

  


Of course there's a knock on the door as soon as Darcy locks her lips over her husband's for a less-playful kiss. They scramble up, hastily straightening the rug and their clothing, and the knock comes again: soundproofing means Darcy can't hear her mother's sing-song rendition of “Daaaar-cyyy! Let us iiiiinn, pleeeeaaase!”, but her memory fills in nicely. “Mom! Pops! Hi!” Darcy practically squeals, jerking the door open (after fumbling for a moment with the series of locks that she's not entirely familiar with). There are hugs, exclamations about long flights and who looks good in their rumpled clothing, before the three of them move back into the apartment. Despite her nerves, Darcy's immensely relieved to see them: two years is a long time to subsist on just phone calls and emails, and she's genuinely missed her parents. They've got one suitcase between them, and Steve steps in to help drag it inside. 

  


“Uh, Mom, Pops, this is Steve--” Darcy starts nervously, making that weird flat-palm presentational gesture that only served to highlight the extreme differences in scale between Darcy, her mother and stepfather, and the super-serum-enhanced American Dream who was nervously holding out a hand to Darcy's stepfather to shake. 

  


“Steve Louis,” he interposes smoothly. “Hey, it's very nice to finally meet you both. Darcy's told me a lot about you.” 

  


“Another Lewis?” Mom exclaims, lingering over the handshake with a glance at her daughter. “How'd you manage that, honey? (Marianne Lewis, nice to meet you Steve,)” she adds. 

  


“Different spellings,” Darcy blurts out, then takes a quick breath. “He's L O U I S. And it's not an uncommon name, Mom. Not like I found the one other guy in the office whose name also happens to be, uh, Krabpszwallowitz, or something.” 

  


“So you kids work together, huh?” Frank asks, handing Darcy his coat. “Yeah, we used to. Started at the call center at the same time,” Darcy answers quickly, holding her arm out for Marianne's coat and racking her brains to remember if the closet to the right of the refrigerator was a coat closet or if it was the pantry. “Steve moved to vehicle underwriting a month or so after I went to claims.” 

She has the coats now; there's no putting it off. Crossing her fingers under the jackets, Darcy makes for the mystery closet with false confidence. 

  


“Vehicle underwriting, huh? Nice. You must get to see a lot of those sport scars and mid-life-crisis-mobiles come across your desk,” Frank puts in. “More motorcycles, actually. I'm kind of a specialized department.” Success! The mystery door turns out to hold not only a coat closet, but also the telescoping-fan-blade-corner-duster-thingie Darcy had been looking for all morning. (She'd made due with the broom for the worst of the cobwebs)

  


“Yeah, Steve specializes in back-to-the-50s cars and motorcycles,” she calls. “

  


”Back to the _forties_ ,” he corrects with a smile. 

  


“ _Forties_ ,” she echoes, and winks back 

  


“I guess with all the fat cats like Tony Stark and their fleets of vintage cars, you'd have a pretty good market here in NYC,” Frank concludes affably. 

  


This is going so much better than she could have hoped: as long as Mom doesn't ask too many probing relationship questions, they might be able to ease into their half-fabricated life together without anyone getting disowned or challenged to a duel. _Oh crap, why did I think that??_ Darcy wonders, just as Steve's getting wine and a beer out of the fridge and everyone is settling around the kitchen island for a chat. 

  


“So this is what an insurance claims adjuster's salary will get in the city, hmmm?” Marianne eyes Darcy over the rim of her beer glass. “Much better, I think, than what your call-center salary was getting you. Or maybe this is a more-than-one-income rental?” 

  


_Crap._ ”Not a rental, Mom. Not a lease, either. Steve and I own the place,” Darcy answers, after a quick swig from her own wineglass. Her mother's momentary silence is all the more frigid for its brevity. 

  


“ _'Own'?_ You move apartments four times in four years and then all of a sudden you... _own_ this place? That seems like a bit of a big step, don't you think? And of course this is meaning no offense, Steve, but that you _own_ this place with this lovely young man whom your parents have only just met!” 

  


“None taken, ma'am, and buying the place was my idea,” Steve put in, and Darcy had to work very hard to not slap her hand to her forehead. “After the Battle of New York, a lot of this area had to be condemned. I talked Darcy around to buying a prospectus apartment while they were still rebuilding, so we got in on the cheap. Stark was offering these places almost as a guilt trip.” Which was why SHIELD snapped up so many of the prospectus apartments all over Manhattan and the Bronx: any chance that Stark was throwing away money was a chance that SHIELD would gladly take him up on. Darcy and Steve's apartment was an official SHIELD safe house, even if they were the only ones who knew where it was to use it. 

  


“And how long ago was that?” Mom asks, less frostily. Of course everyone knows when the Chitauri invasion was, but Darcy knows her mom is casting for bigger fish. She decides to jump for the bait. “About a month after we got engaged,” she answers, meeting her mother's glare without blinking. 

  


_”We need a couple contingency stories,” Steve reminded her. “They might believe we're just an office romance if I'm not around all weekend, but if my mission downtime coincides with your time off, you know I'm gonna feel obligated to show your folks around town.”_

_  
_

_“Sure, yeah, I know. Well, I can't just open the door and say 'hey mom! Come meet my husband!' “ Darcy grumbled, scanning the research-acquisition form one more time before scrawling her name at the bottom. SHIELD sure dealt in a lot of hard-copy forms for an intelligence organization that had pioneered the holographic heads-up conference table, she thought. At least the filing department was reasonably efficient: she could expect the insurance handbooks and quick-link apps to be approved for her “no, really, I work at a large New York City personal insurance company” cover story in a couple days, so the materials could be carefully scattered around the apartment well in advance of her folks' arrival._

_  
_

_“Well, it'd be easier if you could just reintroduce yourself as Darcy Rogers,” Steve quipped, and she scowled. It was an old argument between them, the resolution put off until their marriage could actually become something akin to public knowledge: not of Steve's semi-secret alter ego, of course, but to Darcy's family._

_  
_

_“_ _We can just as easily introduce you as Steve Lewis,” she shot back._

_  
_

_“Don't tempt me,” he muttered. Darcy stared._

_  
_

_“Seriously? You'd change your last name?”_

_  
_

_“I've thought about it. No, really! It'd make going places_ not _as Captain America a lot easier. Driver's license, stuff like that. And I can always say I just look like the guy, and no, my name's not Steve_ Rogers _, it's Steve_ Lewis _,” he added._

_  
_

_“Well, that's certainly something to think about,” Darcy mused._

_  
_

_“What about getting engaged?”_

_  
_

_“Been there, done that, got the ring.” “No, I mean—what if we just told your folks we've gotten engaged? We can have a nice little wedding sometime in the next year or so, maybe do it near Philly, then the whole thing's fixed and smoothed over.”_

_  
_

_“Yeah, until we get to the part where, A) my folks won't know about you till they meet you, B) my mom hasn't gotten to run you past my gamut of aunts and cousins for approval, C) my stepdad doesn't know if you're making enough money to provide for me in the lifestyle to which he thinks I should be accustomed, and D) I haven't even mentioned you to them yet.”_

_  
_

_After a moment, Steve said: “So, announcing our engagement would be a no?”_

_  
_

_“If I want to watch my mother have a stroke on the living room floor, I'll let you know: otherwise, yes, the engagement is a no. We'll have to come up with something else.”_

  


“Well, congratulations, kids!” Frank exclaims, artfully ignoring Marianne and Darcy's staring contest. He turns and offers his hand to Steve once more to shake. “You're letting us buy dinner tonight, no ifs, ands , or buts. We gotta celebrate, don't we, Mar!” 

  


“OF course,” Marianne agrees after a moment, breaking the staring contest and giving Darcy a wan smile. The hug, however, is much warmer, and Darcy relaxes just a little more; Mom even opens her arms to Steve, and he very carefully embraces his mother-in-law. 

  


“We, uh, didn't really want to tell anyone until we had a date set,” Steve offers. “Work's just been crazy, with all this superhero stuff in the city. And it's not a Tuesday if some piece of SHIELD tech doesn't go rogue and take a bank hostage or something.” 

  


“Well, of course we'd've liked to know, _Darce,_ ” Frank says, hugging her, “but you're both busy, we're both busy, and hey, tonight we get to celebrate anyway. Oh,” he says suddenly, looking across to his wife, “I suppose you better call--” 

  


“Sure, I'll give him a buzz in a little bit.” Marianne glances at Steve searchingly, as though she could scan him with some kind of mental laser array. 

  


“Who are we calling?” Darcy asks. 

  


“Ah, well, your mom, you know, her office ladies have kids all over hither and yon, and who was it, hon, Ilsa? Yeah, Ilsa Evans has a son living over in Bushwick. Your mom thought it might be nice if he could visit with someone from home while we were out here, and maybe you could make another friend in the City here.” As though Darcy hadn't been in the City for almost six years, with coworkers, roommates, gym buddies....or mission commanders, asset retrieval teams, stakeouts, trainers, and supers-spies around every corner. At least her folks were still looking out for her. 

  


“You came all the way to New York to set me up on a date?” Darcy asks, incredulous. 

  


“Well, we had no idea you'd already found yourself a young man, did we? And it wasn't a set-up, dear. Just a nice dinner. We'd have all had a nice time, I'm sure. I'll call him later.” 

  


“Great. Hey, I was thinking, we could take you guys to the Dinosaur Barbecue tonight, if you're in the mood for ribs...” Steve suggested. ... 

  


_”Don't worry, Lewis, we've got everything locked down here,” Chang assured her for the eighth time that day. “Trust me, I know from protective parents! We'll shunt all of your handlers' reports to me and Roberts til Tuesday; we'll leave Romanoff's reports and debriefs until you're back, and you can switch your phone off with confidence on Thursday night. Enjoy your weekend with your parents!”_

_  
_

_“Thanks, Eric, I'll try,” Darcy replied, and thought, the aliens and bad guys have fifty-one other weekends a year to try and blow up Manhattan; what are the odds they'll try it between now and Monday? Then: Crap! Why did I just think that??_


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> So maybe there's a little more.

Someone at SHIELD decided, once upon a time, that "time off"  _means_  time off--so when they're tooling across the Heights towards the Dinosaur BBQ, and Steve's work phone goes off, Darcy's doesn't. Darcy suspects Coulson had something to do with writing that into the mass-text-alert program, but she's the one driving tonight and is limited to side-eyeing her husband as he navigates what is probably a top-secret classified ultra-sensitive mission briefing with the folks who don't know he's their son-in-law in the backseat.

 

"Yello," he answers, which should put whoever's on the other end of the phone on alert that his answers are going to be non-standard and pretty short. His face settles into a perfect mask of nonchalance as he listens for a few long moments, before asking, "I don't suppose there's any way this can wait until morning?"

 

Apparently there isn't, because the frown lines on his chin deepen at the other person's response, and Steve's voice becomes Cap's voice and he says, "Yes,  _sir,_ I understand." There are only two people he'll call  _sir_ at SHIELD anymore, and neither of them is going to let Captain America's mother-in-law be his excuse for not saving the city. He disconnects without another word.

 

"Mr Olsen, Mrs Lewis, I'm so sorry, but I've been called in to work," he sighs, swiveling in his seat so he can more or less address everyone in the car. "Darce, hon, can you let me out at 124th up here? I'll take the A back and pick up my stuff at the apartment." He squeezes her shoulder a couple brief pulses:  _stk,_ meaning  _stark,_ which either means he's got to rendezvous at Stark Tower, or that Tony's in trouble. Again. Either way, he'll just keep on the A line until it lets off at Stark Tower, and she probably won't see him again until after "work hours" tomorrow. Darcy's grip tightens on the steering wheel and she clenches her jaw, but she nods and forces a sad little smile.

  
"Oh, that's too bad,  _Mr_ Louis," Marianne puts in. (Somewhere along the drive, Darcy's mom decided that if Steve was going to refuse to call her by  _her_ first name, despite her insistence, then she'd refuse to use  _his_ first name as well.) "We were so looking forward to getting to spend some time with our future son-in-law!"

 

"Hope it's nothing too serious?" Frank asks. There's a bus and a pair of taxis all fighting for the same lane up ahead, so Darcy's forced to stop the car for a moment; Steve lets his quick mental calculations show on his face before answering: "Remember how you were joking that Tony Stark's car collection is why my department exists? Well, you weren't far off. In fact, our resident genius inventor has my boss on speed dial, and apparently there's been an incident involving a '46 roadster ad yet another groundbreaking mechanical marvel from Stark Labs."

 

"Wait, so you really  _do_ know  _Tony Stark??_ " Marianne grabs the back of Steve's seat as Darcy eases them back out into traffic. 

 

"Mom, this isn't something you can let slip anywhere, ok?" Darcy says, signaling for the upcoming curb. "Stark generates a lot of business for us and I'm sure the whole company wants to keep it that way."  
  
"But your boyfriend works with  _Tony Stark,_ honey, that's something that you're gonna have to let sink in for a moment!"  
  
Neither Steve nor Darcy reacts to her use of  _boyfriend,_ although it rankles Darcy a bit. Steve jumps out at the corner, taking just enough time to hold the door for Marianne so she can hop into the front seat, before he's slamming the car door and jogging across St Nicholas to the A-line station. Darcy lets traffic pass for just a brief moment so she can watch him: in uniform or out, her husband's got a fantastic backside.

 

"Well, that's too bad," Frank says as they continue up St Nick's. He leans forward, adding, "He seems like a very nice young man, Darcy. It looks like you two are going to be very happy together." He smiles at her in the rearview mirror. 

 

"Thanks, Pops," Darcy smiles back, more relieved than she can let show. "I'm really glad you like him."

 

"A bit formal, but he's nice enough," Mom muses, giving Darcy one of her searching side-eyes. "Good looking, too. And he's an _insurance salesman?"_

 

"He's an  _underwriter,_ Mom, and I'm a  _claims adjuster._ So yes, we're going to be financially stable for a good long while, especially since his department insures all of Tony Stark's toys. And yes, that means he's got an education, and yes, that means he's got a good head on his shoulders and everything else."  
  
"And what was he before he was an  _underwriter?"_ Mom asks, evidently determined to get as much of the third degree started in the remaining six blocks that they have to go. "He's a bit older than you, isn't he?"

 

Darcy bites back her instinctive response-- _"He's older than all of us in this car, Mom"--_ and instead goes back to their planned cover story: "Yeah, he's got four years on me. He was in the Army right out of high school, then went to NYU for a couple years to get his bachelor's. We started at the office at the same time."

 

"Army, huh? Where was he stationed?"

 

Another cover story answer: "He did some time in Texas, then they shipped him to Germany--" (not an inconceivable career for a modern soldier; might explain some of Steve's more surprising linguistic abilities) "--and then he was in Kosovo before his time was up." And Steve had actually been in Kosovo during his tour in Europe, although quite a different Kosovo than what her parents would imagine: this one in the grip of the Nazis and a key blockade to the German retreat from Greece. 

 

"Oh, he must have some fascinating stories," Marianne urged, and Darcy lets her face settle into impassivity as they pull into the parking lot of the restaurant. 

 

"He doesn't really like to talk about his time in the Army, Mom, so please don't push the issue if it comes up," she pleads. And it's true: Steve has to be in a particular mood to talk about the War, usually one brought on by some television talking head or other spouting on about the idealizations of the past, how America needs to return to a certain set of values--that sort of thing. Steve is usually too recognizable, even in plain clothes, to go out and march, protest, or sit in for a lot of the causes he's still passionate about, but if Captain America was given half a chance you can bet that the Shield and Stripes would be visible at a good number of Occupy and Pride events. Darcy's imagined the scenario several times: Cap tools up on his motorcycle, there's thundering applause and cheers, and then Fox News has outraged soundbytes for a century as someone hands Captain America a microphone and he proceeds to lecture the crowd on the real value of things like universal healthcare, state aid, and what "Communism"  _actually_ means.

 

"So where did Steve grow up?" Frank asks as they're seated in a comfortable round booth. There's a little packing tape over the seat's vinyl, over in one corner, but Darcy can tell that her mom is impressed with the warm cleanliness of the place, as well as their waitress' relative speed in getting their drinks orders and bringing the drinks around. 

 

"Oh, he's from Brooklyn, born and raised," Darcy smiles, taking a sip of her sweet tea.

 

_The day-trip had been Darcy's idea, back when they'd first started seeing each other: Steve hadn't balked at the thought of showing her the Botanic Gardens, but he'd been just a little hesitant when she asked to walk down Washington to see the neighborhood a little. It wasn't_ his _neighborhood, of course, but after Operation Rebirth closed and he was gearing up with the USO tour, Captain America had been all over Brooklyn and Manhattan, stumping for War Bonds sales in gymnasiums and high-school auditoriums. He'd seen almost the entirety of each Borough, as they were in the '40s, before starting his national tour._

 

_Nothing was the same any more, but the shape of the blocks and buildings fit in his head like puzzle pieces, all square pegs and round holes. He'd gallantly leaned over to give Darcy his elbow as they left the Botanic Gardens, strolling down Washington with his usual native-son-on-super-serum swagger, but the further they meandered down, the more Steve seemed to withdraw. He slipped her hand off his arm and his own hands into his pockets as they neared Flatbush, almost ignoring everything except the sidewalk in front of him. She stopped him with a gentle hand on his shoulder (and privately marveling at the sheer mass under her hand--this was still a new thing for her) before they crossed Empire._

 

_"We can go back to the Tower, if you want," Darcy suggested quietly. "Thanks for showing me the Gardens. I've had a really nice time today."_  
  
_"Ach, I'm sorry, Darcy," Steve said with a groan. "This is all---it's all just---" he makes an encompassing sweep of one hand, indicating everything from the pavement to the traffic to the people._

 

_"Is it too strange, to see it like this?"_

 

_"No, not at all. I  mean, the scale of it is different, but..."_

 

_"Steve, please." She turned him to face her, ducking her head under his gaze so he was forced to meet her eye-to-eye. "I really appreciate you bringing me out here, but if anything's making you uncomfortable, we can head back home. I don't want you to not be having fun. Look, we can even grab a cab...."_

 

_She was rewarded with one of the slow, sardonic smiles that made her heart flutter, just a little bit. Steve pleading or pretending ignorance about something, even if he knew more than the other person about it, smiled like that: the little smartassed grin that said,_ I'm just some kid from Brooklyn.

 

_"I'm havin' a great time, Darcy, don't you worry." He picked one of her hands off his arm and resettled it in the crook of his elbow, but when they resumed walking, it was back towards the Gardens. "The whole city is like this for me. You can change the storefronts, tear down the tenements and put up condos, and it doesn't really matter: there's always gonna be steam coming out of the sewer vents in the morning, and there's always gonna be kids playing stickball or catch on some alley, and the hot pavement's always gonna smell the same--" He stopped, abruptly, and the physics of all that mass meant that Darcy was also jerked to a halt._

 

_They were facing the side of an old drugstore, one that proudly proclaimed "Family Owned Since 1928" on it's sign. Layers and layers of paint had smoothed the brick on this side until the rectangular grid was almost lost under the familiar colors and cocky, confident grin of the man pictured there, four or five times larger than life. Someone has to have kept up with repainting this portrait over the long decades, and Darcy was sure that only with the latest revision had the uniform changed: despite the classic pose and the indistinct portraits of the Commandos behind him, the Captain America in the picture was wearing the same uniform as he did in the Battle of New York.  The banner that unrolled along the bottom, however, has probably always read "_ Brooklyn's Own! Captain America!"

 

_After a moment, Darcy squeezed his arm, and he looked down at her and smiled. "Looks like Brooklyn hasn't forgotten you, either," she reminded him, and hoped it was the right thing to say. When he moved his arm around her shoulders to give her a squeeze, she giggled a little to know she'd been right._

 

The meal is nice: long-flight jitters, nerves that were stretched a bit at being in unfamiliar territory, and the shock of finding their daughter engaged to a man they'd never even heard about--all this is starting to relax around Darcy and her folks, so they leave the restaurant and, at Darcy's suggestion, stop at the Haagen-Dasz stand a couple doors down before heading back to the car. Darcy's steered the conversation in careful, winding loops all evening, allowing her to lay down their shared cover story so as to have bits to reference over the rest of the weekend; now it seems almost comfortable, looking at this life she  _might_ have lived if not for Jane Foster, aliens, secret spy organizations, and superheroes. Of course Mom and Pops knew about her college internship with Dr Foster, but aside from a few postcards from New Mexico over that summer, they'd no idea how Darcy's relationship with Jane had continued, nor that Jane's catapulting work on obscure anomalies in astrophysics was the real reason that Darcy had wound up in New York. 

 

"Oh yeah, Dr Foster and I still keep in touch, but I think I've got the whole hard-sciences thing out of my system," Darcy lies as she starts the car again. Frank is almost asleep in the backseat, and Marianne isn't far behind as they head back towards Morningside Heights. 

 

The chunk of masonry that slams into the intersection ahead of them wakes everyone up. 

 

There is no one waiting at the light behind them, so Darcy slams the car into reverse and lays more than a little rubber down in her haste to find a different route home. There are cracks spiderwebbing across the windshield from the flying debris that erupted when the uppermost corner of a building met the pavement below, but none of her tires have been punctured and it seems that even the headlights are still working, at least. Blue and red light trickles into the cracks in the windshield. Marianne is screaming. Frank isn't saying anything, but he's practically bearhugging the back of the front passenger seat; Darcy glances at him in the rearview mirror and barks, "Put your damn seat belt on, Pops!" before squealing up Morningside Avenue. 

 

There are sirens, screams, car horns...and the familiar avalanchine-roar of The Other Guy, as well as the hot-engine scream of twin-repulsor jets. Good: the Team is on top of things, which means that between Cap and Rescue, containment is going to be their first priority. The rock-fall had been at the corner of Morningside and 125th, moving west; Hancock, the wider avenue,  had probably been chosen as the corridor. The Avengers would try to corral whatever Big Bad it was between 125th and Amsterdam, to minimize the property damage (a tactic developed by Pepper Potts that had earned the Team, if not the outright gratitude of the City of New York, then at least the grudging admission that a small area of concentrated damage was of less inconvenience than, say, the total destruction of Harlem). Steve's secondary plan would probably be to direct the chaos towards the Columbia campus as a means of containment, which meant that Darcy's best bet of getting her folks out of the line of fire would be to make tracks back to St Nick....

 

The geography of the city is such that by the time they make it back to 111 and St Nick, there is no sign of the battle behind them besides the wail of sirens and the occasional flash of a repulsor cannon. Rescue and Iron Man work well together, for short periods; Pepper's agreement to fill in while Nat's in China will mean that any airborne threat will be forced down to street level, where Cap, Hawkeye, and Hulk can safely contain it. Darcy can already detect a difference in the level of noise they can hear from back near Hancock: more ambulance sirens now, fewer klaxon horns, and there aren't any more police helicopters racing through the sky to the area. She can pretend that her heartburn is just adrenaline on top of ice cream on top of barbecue, like her folks' is, and not the direct result of being away from her usual place in the CIC while her husband and friends form a literal living shield between an entire populace and some enormous, unknown threat. Luckily there's almost a full bottle of Tums in the medicine cabinet. 

 

The car's GPS, as well as the front door codes and locks, are all tracked back to JARVIS in Stark Tower, but once she's introduced her folks to the guest bedroom and retreated to her own barely-familiar bed, she taps out a quick message on her work phone for Steve: _made it home safe. hope you guys didn't destroy dino's._ JARVIS will read it out to Steve if they're not back at the Tower by now. Darcy changes into her pajamas (an actual set, top and bottoms, which she is only wearing for show while her folks are in town: all she needs to top off the weekend is Mom's discovery that she sleeps in just a tank top, in the same bed as her ~~husband~~ fiancee. Darcy's not precisely sure why this matters, but it's best not to take chances.) and heads back out to the living room to wait for an update from the Team. 

 

Steve limps in a little after 1. He's been treated by the SHIELD medics and his super-system is already healing, but for all his speed, strength, and cunning, Captain America still only takes the field in a jumpsuit with a shield. There's a deep cut along his cheekbone, probably where his cowl was jammed into his face by a blow; while the bruises along his arms are fading rapidly, the strap-bruises from the shield are more habitual and worn in deeper. He winces when she touches his left shoulder, murmuring that it was dislocated in a fall, but that it's already been reset and is just a little tender; the two broken ribs, however, will take almost two days to fully heal. Cap is on light duty til Sunday, whatever that means. 

 

"Oh, Steve, thank heavens you're all right!" Marianne cries from the doorway, rushing out into the kitchen to embrace him, and Darcy cringes in sympathy. They exchange a talking look over Marianne's shoulder while she's excitedly recounting their flight home from the restaurant, and Steve takes the lead on this fresh set of lies.

 

"I was on the subway back from the office already, and I guess one of those robots decided to try and sneak uptown through the A-line," Steve explains wearily. "My train crashed. Don't worry, Mrs Lewis, no one else was hurt any worse than I was, and I've been checked out by the EMTs already." There had actually been robots, the product of someone's deluded attempt to out-Tony Tony Stark, but according to Steve's hastily-whispered report, they hadn't been anywhere near sentient enough to act individually. 

 

"Well, I hope  _Tony Stark_ offers hazard pay, Mr Louis," Marianne sniffs, wrapping her bathrobe more securely around herself. "Have you two ever thought about asking for a transfer elsewhere? I mean, your company has to have offices somewhere a little more....quiet... than New York, right?"

 

"Every time something like this happens, Mom," Darcy answers, and this is not actually a lie, only a half-truth. "Every...single...time."


	3. Chapter 3

The apartment is soundproofed, of course; Darcy's really glad of this fact, as it's 5 am, Steve's still asleep and recovering, her folks are still asleep, and she's rooting around in the kitchen trying to remember where she put everything. Of course she's the one who did the shopping Wednesday night, but places that seemed like a good idea to stash, say, the coffee, are turning out to be completely counterintuitive on an early Friday morning. She's opened up the coat closet twice now in her search and it's totally failed to become the pantry where the coffee lives. 

 

"Well, looks like you've finally started to be a morning person," Frank smiles at her, coming quietly around the corner. Another ten minutes of searching finally yielded a packet of coffee grounds and the percolator has been going for five, which means that Frank has emerged just in time for the first over-bitter cup. He tastes his, grimaces expansively, and reaches for the carton of milk Darcy's left on the counter. "For someone who never liked coffee, you've certainly developed a tolerance for the strong stuff."

 

"Steve only drinks the percolator stuff," Darcy explains, adding creamer, milk, and brown sugar to hers, until there's equal amounts coffee and other stuff in her cup. If she could be completely honest, she'd tell her stepdad that Steve only drinks coffee that reminds him of the over-boiled campfire brew that he could get in Europe before V-E Day. His heart hadn't been strong enough to deal with stimulants before Operation Rebirth picked him up, and so when he was first offered a cup of hot black sludge, he took to it with a frentic instant loyalty: that, and smoking with the Commandos, seemed to be the finishing touches on the Steven G Rogers Transformation Cake.

Back at the Tower, Tony's got every variety of espresso machine, k-cup maker, drip maker. Pepper has confided that Tony's been responsible for a great many small explosions, fires, and melted coffeemakers in Stark Tower. Part of it is his utter dependence upon stimulants; the rest is his endless need to tinker, refine, and rebuild, even if he turns out a product that's completely unrecognizable in it's original function. Darcy's managed to keep him away from the small, elegant espresso press in their suite of rooms, but with both of them out of the Tower for the weekend, there's no telling what the machine will be capable of when they return. 

 

Marianne is up around 7, and Steve slowly emerges from their room about a half hour later. He's holding himself carefully upright and a little lopsided, trying to ease the pressure on his still-healing ribs and move normally at the same time, for the benefit of his secret in-laws. This morning is a lot easier: the groundwork of false information has been laid down, and now everyone has to simply remember what they've been told. Inclusion of things like pajamas and toast seem to go a long way towards the relaxed atmosphere as well. "Oh no, ma'am. I've already called in," Steve says in response to Marianne's questions. "No, once I explained to my boss how the night ended, he agreed that I earned a Friday off."

 

"Well then. Maybe you can come with us this morning? Do we have an itinerary for sightseeing, Darce?" For this, Darcy is better prepared: pulling a file out of a magnetic folder on the fridge, she spreads out printed sheets on everything from Central Park to Coney Island to the Statue of Liberty to some of the bakeries featured on the Food Network. Frank perks up at this last one, and blurts out, "I bet Carlo's would do your wedding cake!"

 

And thus the morning is spent almost entirely in the kitchen: suddenly there's talk of colors, locations, seasons, printers, invitations, photographers, caterers, and absolutely no mention of how much a full-out Catholic wedding is going to cost. (That part gives Marianne and Frank a little pause: they're Methodist, and that's how Darcy was raised, but they get to glimpse Steve's almost limitless well of stubbornness when Frank starts to idly debate the merits of an indoor vs. outdoor wedding. Steve states, politely but firmly, that his mother wouldn't have stood for her son to be married anywhere but inside a church with full rites.) It's a detail to be chewed over later, of course, and Mom starts to rattle off lists of people who should be invited, who should get an invite but probably won't come; who should be deliberately not invited; who should be invited but not allowed to bring guests.... Darcy sacrifices one of the potential schedules she'd drawn up so that Mom can start getting all the names on paper. More than a few names end up on more than one list.

 

_"Oh, you're totally coming to the wedding," Jane said, not even giving Darcy a chance to respond to any of her previous, yet equally earth-shattering statements. Wedding? Jane? Thor? Alien? How was that even going to work? Jane's expression was beatific and uncaring. "It'll work," she replied, with the same confidence that had drawn her to everything else in her life: whatever Jane Foster wants, Jane Foster gets, and it just so happened that this time, Jane Foster wanted to marry the heir apparent to a massive alien magical science empire. No problem._

 

_Darcy was already switching back to what she thought of as her Jane Brain: fast responses, lots of intuitive leaps, and not a lot of mention of things like laws, physical impossibilities, or feelings. The only ego that mattered was Jane Foster's--until they'd been offered space with SHIELD, and then in Stark Tower, where there were plenty of egos to go around. Jane Brain had to become Jane-Integration Brain, and thus had Darcy cemented her place in the super-spy organization as the Official Laboratory Diplomat: when Stark, Foster, and Banner worked on disparate or concurrent projects, someone had to make sure that they were sharing their equipment, computers, and table space, as well as make sure that Jane's early hours didn't overlap with Tony's late nights and that no one bullied Banner over server access or sample analysis. Someone had to bring the scientists sandwiches and make sure that they occasionally showered and found their own beds, or at least reasonable facsimiles thereof; and now, it seemed, someone needed to assist Dr Foster with the logistics of planning a pan-dimensional wedding._

_Darcy was in the Tower library for weeks, once she discovered that an Asgardian wedding was going to be more an affair of state than just the union of two people. Standing before a justice of the peace would only work on Earth, despite Jane's objections; Thor himself hadn't ever really paid attention to the weddings he_ had _been to, oftentimes skipping the ceremonial aspects alltogether in favor of getting rowdy at the feasts afterwards. Lady Sif, once Darcy had gotten over her intimidation factor and sheer linear height, had proven a little more helpful, but she'd spent her life in the company of people like Thor and had never really been interested in such matters. Heimdall, on the other hand, knew how every single wedding in Asgard had been performed since the time of King Bor--and all Darcy needed to do to pick his brain was take a vertiginous, head-spinning trip through the Bifrost._

 

_"I'm getting overtime for this, Jane, you know that, right?" Darcy moaned from the open bathroom door, having relieved herself of every meal she'd ever eaten ever. "Time, travel, expenses...."_

 

_"I don't sign your paychecks anymore, Darcy, you know that, right?" Jane replied, not unkindly, leaning against the door frame with an ice pack in one hand and a wet washcloth in the other. "Listen, I do really appreciate all the work you're doing for the wedding. You're going to get a whole weekend at that spa in midtown that Pepper Potts loves so much, and Thor has promised he'll have a healer on hand when you step off the Bridge to take care of any travel-sickness. Can't have my maid of honor puking at the altar."_

 

_"Your maid of honor would settle for some saltines and orange juice at this point, but thank you." Darcy sighed as Jane laid the washcloth against her forehead, then maneuvered her to sit on the closed toilet seat and laid Darcy's crossed wrists over the ice pack. She cracked one eyelid to look at her former boss. "You know this wedding's gonna be pretty epic, right? I mean, there's like a million people coming to this thing, and Thor's buddy whatsisname, Volstagg, is apparently planning on feeding all million of them until there's turkey gravy leaking out their eyeballs. Plus you're getting crowned official science princess of Asgard and there's all these things I have to do afterwards to prep your marriage bed, and Thor's best man has to kidnap a bunch of people to watch you guys have sex...."_

_Jane made a kind of choked snorting noise, and Darcy opened her eyes and grinned at her wearily. "Kidding. I kid, really! No, but we're all supposed to wait outside your room and report to Odin that we heard you guys gettin' it on with the consummation exercises. You're not considered married til at least eight reliable witnesses confirm that 'all the rites have been observed', " she finished with air quotes and her best Heimdall imitation._

 

 _Jane was still giving her some serious side-eye, but she re-folded the washcloth and replaced it on Darcy's forehead, saying, "Well, I'll leave it to you and Thor to fill Captain Rogers in on what his duties are going to be."_  
  
_"Ha, you said 'duty'," Darcy giggled. Then: "Wait,_ Captain America _is going to be Thor's best man? Are you serious?" Her brain obligingly conjured up images in rapid succession: Captain America in his well-fit uniform; Captain America in a tailored tuxedo, at some Stark function; Captain America in his fitted t-shirts and shorts, at the training center. Captain America's butt featured prominently in each image, and if she'd been capable, Darcy would have blushed; as it was, she turned even more pale._

 

_"Don't panic!" Jane instructed sternly, seeing her blanch. "Captain Rogers is going to be fulfilling some kind of role as Thor's Midgardian brother-in-arms; there isn't going to be just one best man. I think the Warriors Three and Sif are going to kind of round out his side of the aisle. And the rest of the Avengers will be there, too, so it's not like you two will have to be locked in your own room together or anything."_

 

_But, as it turned out, for a royal inter-dimensional wedding, that was exactly what one of the requirements was: as soon as the troths had been pledged and about sixty toasts had been quaffed, Darcy found herself bolting the door behind her as she and Captain Steven Rogers America snuck into Thor and Jane's bridal chamber for the next round of preparations. For a moment they avoid looking at each other, instead staring at the immense pile of flowers, fabric, jewelry, and the collection of weapons that had been heaped up on the bed. Near the door was an entire barrel of mead, with two goblets in a lined wooden case resting on top; in each corner of the room were about a million candles, all of which had to be lit around the same time so that they burned evenly and went out at about the same time._

 

_"Explain to me the candles and mead thing again?" Captain Rogers asked quietly, startling Darcy out of her momentary sense of overwhelming "wtf??"_

 

_"Um. The couple has to stay in the bridal chamber, refreshing themselves only with mead and, uh, the sweet, um, sweat of their labors, until the candles have all burned down to pools of wax," Darcy recited slowly. "They can't emerge until the cask is dry and all of the candles are out. Blowing the candles out isn't allowed, and the only way they can get rid of the mead besides drinking it is if something catches on fire and they need to put the fire out." Darcy risked a glance at Captain Rogers; her head was already swimming with all the mead they'd had to drink at the ceremony, and it seemed like he just got taller, more and more handsome, and somewhat further away the more she had to drink._

 

_"OK. So. Cloth over the windows, right?" He grabbed a corner of some gorgeous-looking fabric, tugging the whole lump of cloth off the bed and failing to disentangle the piece in his hand. Darcy wobbled over to help, and between the two of them they managed to drape what seemed like a thousand yards of gold-and-silver woven cloth over the rods above each of the room's eight windows. Each length had to be woven in and around the others to form a pretty tangle of knotwork at each window, and Darcy was sure they were going to run out of time before they got to the eighth window. Next came the hasty arrangement of jewelry and weapons across the bed itself (gifts to and from the bride and groom, which had to be taken off the bed in a certain order) and then, finally, tapping the cask and lighting the candles. Captain--Steve had taken charge of lighting the candles, because apparently the buzz from Asgardian mead doesn't just wear off and Darcy was not in the state of mind to be safely handling fire._

 

_"High five," Darcy exclaims, as they survey the completed bridal chamber, but she misjudges the distance to Steve's hand and ends up almost falling over. With almost no effort he's got her scooped up in his arms, safely off her feet and away from any burning materials. "Hey, no fair, how come you're not drunk?" She slurs up at him, and she thinks he smiles. Even pressed against his broad chest, he seems far away._

 

_"Quadruple-speed metabolism," he say softly, "and don't worry, I was feeling the mead too, for a while. Hey," he bounces her in his arms as Darcy's eyelids start to droop, "stay with me, kid. We've got that whole bride-running thing to do next, remember?"_

The rest of the weekend is...surprisingly smooth. Darcy doesn't want to admit to herself that she's just a teensy bit disappointed: their only superheroic excitement was Thursday night, the only time her folks got to see a little bit of the world she lives in. She can't tell them how far into that world she is; she can't tell her mom what it's like to know that every time there's a terrorist threat, or a megalomaniacal despot on the loose, that she's got to sit at a desk inside a bunker and watch her husband on satellite images as he throws himself in front of the world for the millionth time. She can't confide in her stepdad how much it worries her that her employers have been brought low in front of the world once, and might again; she can't tell anyone how it feels to wonder, however briefly, if any new person she meets or notices on the street or sees in passing is a HYDRA agent, keeping tabs on Captain America's wife.

 

But she's glad to be able to show her folks that she loves this man she's found, and he loves her, and that while they're together they're safe and happy and stable. There are hugs at the departures gate on Sunday afternoon; Marianne and Steve are still calling each other "Mr Louis" and "Mrs Lewis", but now there is an undercurrent of affection running along with the sarcasm. Frank pulls Darcy aside a little bit as Steve's helping Marianne unload the trunk. 

"I finally figured it out," Frank murmurs to his stepdaughter, watching the two of them banter back and forth on the curb. 

"What's that, Pops?"

"I thought Steve looked familiar when we first met him; I just couldn't figure out where I'd seen him before," Frank replies, and Darcy's heart begins to sink. His shiner and the cut on his cheekbone are almost gone, and Steve's been wearing what he calls his Clark Kent glasses most of the weekend, but Darcy'd been hoping against hope to send her parents off without either of them making the connection.

 

"If this insurance thing doesn't work out, tell Steve he'd make a pretty good buck doing kids parties, you know? I mean, his hair's a little too short, he'd need a beard, and he'd have to get some of those lift boots, but your fiancee could make a good Thor impersonator, don't you think? ...What?" He adds, when Darcy giggle-snorts into her elbow and coughs. 

 

"Sure, Pops. If Tony Stark stops needing insurance on all his forties muscle cars, I'm sure Steve would look good in the red cape and armor." Steve shoots her a look across the trunk of the car, and she winks back at him:  _tell you on the way home._

 

Traffic is such that they're only making their way through Midtown by the time her folks' plane takes off from LaGuardia, and Darcy and Steve are still laughing about the Thor-impersonator idea when the mass-text alert chimes out through the car. Steve groans and picks up his phone, and once they're stopped at a red light, Darcy glances at hers, too: the same red-alert banner is flashing from the top of her work phone as well.

 

"Vacation's over, I guess," she sighs, and reaches over to squeeze Steve's hand. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for any comments or notes you care to leave! If you're on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/tobinlaughing), so am I.


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